The Proposal Guys Jon and BJ's proposal blog
  • Home
  • About
  • SP Website
  • Contact
  • Subscribe
  • Home
  • About
  • SP Website
  • Contact
  • Subscribe

Distracting your readers

1/28/2010

1 Comment

 
Posted by Jon
Graham Ablett, one of our UK consulting directors, spotted the following photo in the Daily Mail last month:
Picture
It’s interesting to read the accompanying story: there’s little or no discussion of the benefits that the £116m scheme will bring to public transport users in the area, but plenty of opportunity for those opposed to the scheme to make cheap, humorous jibes at its expense.

I guess that’s paralleled by apparently minor errors in a sales proposal: they distract the audience from the real story, and give your enemies on the evaluation panel a free pass to criticise your bid. Worst case, you’ll become the butt of their jokes. We may have said it before, but those detailed final checks before you issue a document really are hugely important, no matter how time-constrained you are. (Some in the proposal world talk about ‘white glove’ reviews; we prefer to just talk about checking the document carefully).
​
And if you simply don’t have the people or skills to do the checking? Then it’s time to go and shout at people until they understand the impact that under-resourcing your proposal team is having on your documents – and hence your win rates.
1 Comment
Graham Ablett
3/25/2016 04:43:00 pm

I saw a great proofing error last week during a review of a client’s proposals. They not only got their customer’s name wrong, but actually their own – all on the same page. Quite spectacular! I certainly was distracted whilst trying to read that section of the proposal and if I were the customer, I would have probably stopped reading at that point.

Reply

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    Articles by Topic

    All
    APMP & Accreditation
    Interviews And The Panel
    Musings
    Processes & Best Practice
    Proposal Guys News
    Proposal Panda
    Proposal Training
    Purchasing Insights
    Word Play & Writing

    Authors

    BJ Lownie and Jon Williams are the co-founders of Strategic Proposals.

    Subscribe



    * Required fields

    SP News

    Strategic Proposals News

    RSS Feed

Picture
Website by Digital Media Design, Inc.